by Rick Church, Head Coach, CM Services, Inc. The Association Management Company

It’s been quite a while since I created a post on this blog. Something caught my attention today and I was inspired to share it through my blog. Most of my posts relate to leadership. Not because I hold myself up as some great leader, but because I aspire to be a better leader.

One way to become a better leader is to study great leaders. Identify the characteristics and traits they shared and adopt them as your own. When we think of great leaders some of the qualities we think of include: charisma, decisiveness, honesty, trustworthiness, intelligence, ability to communicate effectively, and many more.

One of the qualities we don’t often attribute to great leaders (but one that I believe all share) is their desire to learn.

Think about it. Great leaders are lifelong learners. They are curious. They want to read what other people have written. They want to listen to what other people are saying. They want to gain as much knowledge as they can.

To most people, the concept of becoming “lean” connotes having less or doing more with less. For example, I am 35 pounds leaner than I was fifteen months ago. My company is managing more associations today with fewer employees than we did two years ago – we are leaner. To many businesspeople the concept of lean is also associated primarily with manufacturing businesses. It’s a concept that’s applied to the operations of the business, not to leadership.

I think the concept of the lean CEO is interesting. In fact, it mirrors many of the same leadership traits we often discuss in this blog. The author of the article suggests that lean isn’t just a cost-cutting thing, or only applicable to manufacturing. Instead, he believes lean is a cultural change that brings about success for the employees and the business.

Here are a couple of the key concepts of lean:

It creates an environment that is motivating to workers by involving them in making the business better.

It is about continuous improvement and involves everyone in that process.

It improves productivity but not by asking people to work harder and longer but getting them to work together as a team.

It’s about respecting people. The teammates, the customers, management.

Sound familiar? These are all concepts we have come to know and expect from great leaders.

Perhaps we should be talking more about Leanership. I plan to read The Lean CEO.

There are many traits successful leaders have. We have discussed many of them through this blog. Of course, there are some traits shared by most, if not all, successful leaders such as, honesty, focus and commitment.

There are other leadership traits that we commonly think of when we think of great leaders such as communication, selflessness and humility.

Leaders become leaders because they are often smart, well-liked, able to set and achieve goals and able to get a group (or team) of people to work together toward a common mission.

One leadership trait we don’t talk about enough is sharing. Leaders who share their knowledge, their experience and their goals are the most successful leaders.

I recently read an article about the importance of sharing as a leadership trait. You can read it here.

What I really liked about this article is it draws attention to something I truly believe – that great leaders are not great because of who they are, but what their team is. Great leaders encourage and embrace a culture of sharing. They don’t hold their knowledge close to the vest and keep others from gaining it. Rather, they share that knowledge and in doing so, encourage their teammates to do the same.

The result? A team of people who trust each other, are confident in their ability to do their job well and an industry leading organization meeting the challenges of its customers.

What kind of leader are you? Do you share openly and honestly with your team? Or are you concerned about sharing certain knowledge – afraid that doing so will make you less valuable to the team?

I challenge you to give some thought to this concept and implement it in your business. I think you’ll be glad you did.

I’ve often wondered if I could be a better leader if I was less connected to email, google, news feeds and apps through my smartphone. I try not to be rude about my smartphone use. I try hard to not check it during business meetings or when I’m in a conversation with someone else. I was particularly struck by our connection to smartphones the other day during a family meal. We were having a conversation. I looked away from the table for a second and when I turned back EVERYONE in my family had their head down looking at their smartphone. This was frustrating and eye opening.

I decided to document the number of times per day I check my phone and the approximate amount of time per day I spend engaged with my phone and not the people around me. Here are the results:

I check my smartphone approximately 14 times per day.

I spend approximately one hour per day checking email, calendar items, news, weather, etc on my smartphone

Those numbers don’t sound so staggering. They’re significantly less than most people. However, the fact remains that time could be spent engaging people in face to face conversations to solve problems, create opportunities, or just make people around me feel valued.

Technology has improved our lives in so many ways. I wonder though if there isn’t a case to be made for improving quality of life and productivity by stepping back from some technology.

I challenge you to measure how many times per day you use your smartphone for activities other than phone calls and how much time that takes. Then try to spend a day without the smartphone and see if your quality of life and productivity in business is affected.

That’s my next step! I’ll let you know if I’m brave enough to do it and what the results are.

We’ve all seen them. Some of us have written them. I’m talking about lists…not grocery lists or to-do lists. I’m talking about the tenets of leadership lists.

I love reading other people’s tenets of leadership lists. I like what those lists allow me to learn about the people who wrote them. The lists give a real insight into the kind of leader these people are.

I’m constantly working on my tenets of leadership list – I hope you are too. I’ll share a few of my tenets here. However, I encourage you to read two other recent blog postings I’ve read to see what others think are important leadership tenets. The first is 16 Ways to be the Leader of Choice. Interesting title for that blog. I must admit I really like a few of these tenets (some of which closely align with some of mine).

For example:

Choose meaningful goals. I suppose this is obvious. However, if a leader’s goals aren’t meaningful, who will follow them?

Respect others. Absolutely critical in leadership. The caveat is you can’t ask for or “demand” respect. You have to earn it.

Sacrifice for the benefit of others. I love this one. Putting others first is one of my tenets.

Have enough ego to aspire to leadership but not so much that you forget leadership is about service. I laughed when I read this. Not because I don’t agree with it – I do. But I just thought of all the “leaders” I have known who were egomaniacs and thought leadership was about being served, not serving others.

The other leadership blog I read recently was about former North Carolina basketball coach, Dean Smith, who passed away this week. I have always liked North Carolina basketball. Perhaps it was because of Michael Jordan and that unbelievable shot he made as a freshman in the National Championship game. Or perhaps it was because Dean Smith attended the University of Kansas, my alma mater, where he learned basketball from the best ever – Phog Allen. Read the blog posting here. I think you’ll agree Dean Smith was a great coach, mentor, and leader.

NBA great and Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley once famously said, “I am not a role model”. I like Sir Charles and even can understand his point to a certain extent – I think he was trying to let parents and teachers know that they have daily interactions with children and should be their role models.

Unfortunately, Charles was wrong and so are many leaders.

You see, whether he liked it or not, Charles was in a leadership position. He was and is a leader of his family, he was a leader on his team, and as a high profile professional athlete, he was a leader of young athletes everywhere. As such, it was and is his responsibility to set a good example – to be a role model.

The posting points out that no one is perfect and even the best leaders occasionally aren’t the best role models. Nonetheless, when in a leadership position, every action you take (or don’t take) and everything you say (or don’t say) is seen and heard by your team – by those you lead – they deserve your very best.

So this blogger had a list of the six “saboteurs” of being a positive role model:

It’s what you were taught

Just this one time

It’s easier

It’s faster

You’re frustrated

It feels good to let off a bit of steam

I know I’m not always a great role model – and therefore probably not always a great leader. However, understanding that as a leader I am a role model is vital. What great leaders do is find ways to make being a positive role model a habit. And habits are hard to break.

(Those values of trust, respect or responsibility and caring really resound with me)

2. Be yourself.

(People know when someone is phony and they won’t respect and trust that person. You can only be an effective leader when you are yourself. Just because you might be a different leader than others, doesn’t mean you aren’t a leader)

3. Integrity is the bedrock of effective leadership. Only you can lose your integrity.

(This couldn’t be more true. Great leaders have integrity)

These three “Mantras” of leadership are things I strive to live up to daily. Which ones do you find important?

About Rick

Rick Church is Head Coach of CM Services, Inc. The Association Partnership Company. CM Services pioneered the concept of developing long-term partnerships with national and international trade associations and professional medical associations. Mr. Church has published articles and given presentations about association leaders (both volunteer and paid). Mr. Church served as president of the Association Management Company Institute (AMCi). While on AMCi's Board of Directors, Mr. Church was very involved in the development of the AMCi/ANSI standard for Association Management Companies and the AMCi certification program based on that standard.